Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Latte Factor: The Price of Convenience

David Bach author of the Finish Rich and Automatic Millionaire series teaches about the power of the Latte. Not like super powers, unless you count slowly draining you of your hard earned money, but the power meaning how much of a role continually spending little bits of money everyday add up and negatively affect your finances. Bach uses the morning cup of coffee to explain how this works, but it really works with anything you buy continually; like lunch and that afternoon snack.

The Latte Factor can be that one thing that keeps your budget from working, thus keeping you from reaching your financial goals. Think about it….

$1,200 a year for a morning cup of coffee. And that’s not adding your morning Danish, or your lunch or your afternoon snack.

$1,200 a year for coffee, when you could buy coffee from the grocery store and bring it to work (a piece of fruit, granola bar, and nuts for snacks) and you save yourself so much money over the course of a year.

One of the first things I do when I am working with a client is to ask them to tell me what they THINK their spending is, THEN we go over what their spending ACTUALLY is. Every time there is a BIG difference. Unless our spending habits are laid out in front of us in of them in black and white. It’s always a shock.

The Latte Factor is one way to cut back your spending and be more conscious of what you spend your money on. Many things we buy are convince items that if we spent the same amount in the grocery store our money would go much further.

Go to the grocery store with a list, use coupons and see how much more money you have and depending on what you buy see how much healthier you are.